Lea Raudsepp

- Training Consultant and Partner

As a sociology graduate, Lea’s fascination with what makes people tick has permeated her entire career. After cutting her teeth (and wearing out good shoes), in a corporate sales environment, she moved into the world of agency-side marketing working across a broad spectrum of B2B and B2C clients on big brand names such as; Baileys, J&B, Smirnoff , Guinness, Air Canada, John West, Campbell’s foods, Boots the Chemist, Tandy and Lavazza.

In 2001 Lea identified a huge gap in the market for a training consultancy with a difference, one with a creative approach to how new skills and behaviours were embedded in organisations. She began Fibre Training with a fresh philosophy; that understanding individuals and what motivates them is the key to offering training that works. And that training like this can produce genuine business growth and positively change the way people operate.

Now with an ever-growing list of blue-chip clients, Fibre Training still rigorously pursues Lea’s initial vision of training. Always matching talent and business acumen with an empathetic approach towards communication and understanding.

Lea is a Partner of Fibre Training and founded the company in 2001. She is on the faculty of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a guest speaker and trainer for the Institute of Credit Management and an approved trainer for the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

Tracy Huntley

- Training Consultant and Partner

Before becoming a full-time trainer Tracy spent 15 years in marketing, corporate and agency side, in Europe and the Asia Pacific region working for KP Foods, Nestle, Pepsi-Cola, Citroen and Reckitt and Coleman Pharmaceuticals. As a trainer she has worked with the public and private sectors, including advertising, manufacturing, engineering, legal, media, financial, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Rather unusually for a marketer, Tracy holds a BSc Honours Degree in chemistry. And she has used her well-developed strategic and analytical thinking skills in both her marketing and training, marrying them with a genuine interest in communication and developing others.

This interest in people (not normal for a chemist!), triggered a move to undertake a PGCE teacher-training course in 1994. However, missing the cut and thrust of business life she left the children and the classroom and returned to marketing...and very specifically copywriting. She finally found her raison d'être by becoming a training consultant, combining her business experience and teaching skills. She says she’s never been happier and more satisfied with work...

She is passionate about good written and verbal communication in business and the importance of getting it right. She uses her skills to help others win new tenders through good writing and language, negotiating costs and contracts and building on-going relationships.

Tracy is a Partner of Fibre Training and joined the company in 2003. She is a faculty member and lecturer at the Chartered Institute of Marketing and an approved trainer for the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and the Institute of Credit Management.

Michael Hobbs

- Training Consultant and Voice Coach

After a degree in history, Michael started his career as an actor appearing on television and stage and then as an award winning presenter for the BBC. He went on to write and produce factual entertainment for the BBC, Channel 4 and Five.

Having won an Evening Standard Scholarship, Michael received an MBA in Leadership and Strategy from Henley Management College in 2003. His thesis on charismatic leadership was subsequently published as a Henley Working Paper. His subsequent research has concentrated on developing effective leadership and communication skills. In particular he works on putting passion into presentations that are frequently drained by hours of monotonous PowerPoint!

Michael’s training and experience as an actor and BBC presenter combined with his academic research and management experience, gives him a unique approach in learning how to connect with and influence an audience. He works on understanding the presenter/audience dynamic, developing physical and vocal ability, and using techniques to present your information in a way that gets your audience to follow your lead.

Michael still works on stage as an actor, most recently in the West End playing Elrond and Treebeard in Lord of the Rings to two and a half thousand people nightly and in Who Ate All the Pies, a new musical about football.

Michael lectures at the Lancashire Business School, is a member of BAFTA and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Deborah Brasier-Creagh

- Training Consultant

Deborah’s experience as a trainer and consultant is founded on her career in advertising. Working her way up from the bottom, in a sink or swim culture, she became Head of Client Service at the top twenty international agency, Lintas, where she worked with a breadth of clients, such as Unilever, Nestle, Lloyds Bank, and Johnson and Johnson.

Making an unusual culture change, Deborah decided to develop her brand and business experience as MD of a start-up brand and packaging design agency. Four years later, she had worked at all levels with every sector of the market place and had helped build a strategically-led design company of 50 people. Having had to learn almost entirely by trial and error herself, she established structured and supported career paths for her own people, believing that confident and skilled individuals make happier and more successful bunnies at work!

For 10 years now, Deborah has specialised in training, coaching and mentoring. She is experienced in all areas of management skills training, from team building and performance coaching to conflict management and negotiation. She enjoys working at all levels of development, with all manner of clients, whether in group session or one-to-one.

It has to be said, that Deborah loves to engage her excellent analytical skills in problem solving – but as a trainer, her ambition is to give others the skill to solve or, better still to avoid, their own problems!

Nigel Pearcy

- Training Consultant

Nigel worked for over 20 years in digital and off-line marketing communication, encompassing design, branding, DM, advertising and promotional fields. He has held MD & CEO positions for leading Independent and Group European & Worldwide marketing services businesses, managing and motivating up to 125 staff at a time.

He has spent much of his time working at board level with international companies including Heinz, Black & Decker, Burger King, Mercedes-Benz, BP, Danone, BT Cellnet/O2, Wella, Black & Decker & IBM on maximising their brand, marketing & communication efforts to generate extra sales and profits. His work has been recognised with many international marketing, promotional, sponsorship and DM effectiveness awards.

Additionally he has held a directorship for the MCCA industry body, been a guest speaker at The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and provided training for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Institute of Credit Management.

Nigel believes in achieving commercial and profitable growth of businesses and their staff; through good business planning and modelling, effective management, marketing and training to ensure delivery for all stakeholders.

Andrew Skeen

- Training Consultant

It would be fair to say that Andrew’s career path defines the phrase “portfolio career”. In addition to working as a copywriter and corporate trainer, Andrew writes both fiction and non-fiction on a variety of subjects, usually as a ghost writer.
His career as a writer and educator began lecturing in History and Asian Studies, while acting as a staff writer for a number of political candidates for the major parties.
Since leaving academia in 1997, Andrew has worked in Italy, London and Edinburgh with several large corporates, in roles related to training, writing, marketing and sales. Along the way he has developed a reputation for passion and delivering against challenging objectives. His writing and training experience covers creative advertising, marketing copy, proposals and tenders, instructional text, policies & procedures and technical authoring.
By taking a focused, research-based approach, Andrew concentrates on helping organisations to use language effectively and win more business.

Amanda Bruce

- Training Designer

A business graduate, Amanda spent the first 20 years of her working life as a marketer, new product development consultant and change agent for large organisations such as Boots Plc, Danone, the BBC, Unilever, Nestle and British Airways.

During this time she came to believe that a large part of an organisation’s success lies in its ability to embrace a creative approach to the way it thinks and operates. Supporting this belief she qualified as an accredited NLP practitioner. She delivers communication skills training and coaching, with a particular emphasis on optimising the intangible aspects of business relationships e.g. creating the most appropriate first impression, building rapid rapport, speaking a client’s language etc. This has led to a lot of success helping organisations to both improve their new business pitch:win ratio, as well as their profitability, on the back of more effective customer relationships. She brings a creative and challenging dynamic to the work she does at Fibre Training both in delivery of workshops and in developing and optimising training programme content.

Caroline Taylor

- Training Consultant

Caroline has over 25 years’ experience in marketing, the last six of which she has spent in the digital space. She believes there is a need for greater knowledge and understanding of digital marketing within companies across all sectors. And this belief has initiated her move into the world of training.

In her previous role as Group Marketing Director at leading digital agency TBG Digital, and before that Group Marketing Director at The Search Works and TradeDoubler, Caroline gained enormous insight into key aspects of digital marketing; from online advertising, social media, affiliate marketing and search to more topical issues such as mobile and location based marketing.

She now helps people understand what digital marketing is and how it can benefit their business. Her previous experience in traditional and offline marketing, both agency and client side, enables her to put together cross-media marketing strategies. She provides a holistic approach to matching products with customers, maximising sales and therefore return on investment.

Besides digital, her specialities are brand reputation and buyer behaviour and she has worked as a consultant to many major businesses across Europe on online and offline communications and brand strategies. Caroline is a trained linguist and enjoys the challenge of developing campaigns that can work across many markets.

Clients include NatWest, Habitat, Philips, Swatch, Air Miles, Vodafone, Sony, Motorola, Matsushita, Procter & Gamble and ICL.

Rachel Lake

- Client Services Director

Leading the new business programme, Rachel ensures that Fibre communicates effectively and regularly with existing clients; as well as helping to identify and establish new relationships with brands and companies looking to invest in and benefit from the successful training and coaching of their people.

Rachel started her career as a researcher for “Good Housekeeping” contributing to both magazine articles and commercial projects commissioned by some of the UK’s leading consumer brands.

It was here that her taste for marketing and effective brand communication started and continued to evolve throughout her 15 years in the agency world, working across integrated campaigns for Sony, BBC, Comet, Boots, Johnnie Walker, Mitchells and Butlers, National Car Rental and Shell.

Rachel now combines her knowledge as a marketer with her ability to develop and leverage strong, lasting client relationships. She takes a strategic, targeted and creative approach to new business, developing a dialogue and building trust with prospective clients.

Simon Gill

- Training Consultant

From a grounding in accountancy with Ernst & Young, Simon spent 17 years in marketing communications with a range of posts including responsibility for client management, business development, personal skills development and training and operational efficiency.

Since then Simon has focused on using this breadth of experience to deliver motivational and successful ‘people focused’ training, specialising in negotiation & persuasion, relationship marketing  and other ‘soft skill’ areas from training through to coaching & mentoring.

For the last six years, he has been working almost exclusively with professional service firms – particularly within the legal sector, working with a wide variety of solicitor firms and over 40 barrister chambers – delivering training programmes which are practical & highly interactive, built up from years of relevant experience and developed & tested by working with other professionals.

Simon has a very personable and positive personality and enjoys working with people. He brings a drive and commitment to the training environment combined with a sense of humour and a desire to make the training experience enjoyable as well as productive for delegates and clients alike.